


The Darkest Lord

by rhymer23



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Filk, Gen, Humor, Poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-24
Updated: 2014-04-24
Packaged: 2018-01-20 16:14:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1516967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhymer23/pseuds/rhymer23
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sauron sings us a summary of his nefarious deeds, in an attempt to prove that he is the ultimate Dark Lord of fantasy fiction.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Darkest Lord

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the April 2014 challenge on the Lord of the Rings challenges community on LJ. The brief was to write a comic verse incorporating a pair of assigned words. Being something of a glutton for punishment, I decided to write the header and notes in verse, too.
> 
> The **title** is The Darkest Lord, and Rhymer (me) did **author** it.  
>  (This header, see, is all in verse: I don't know why I thought o' it!)  
> The **rating** is PG, and April's **theme** is verse of merriment:  
>  Participants were sent a pair of rhyming words, their **element:**  
>  Pontificate was one of mine, the other was participate.  
> The **notes** (in verse) are at the end: I'll leave you to anticipate.  
>  The **summary:** Lord Sauron sings about his deeds nefarious,  
>  The **word count** is six hundred words, a few, I hope, hilarious.

**The Darkest Lord**

I am the very model of the fantasy antagonist:  
The Dark Lord who would rule the world, if not for the protagonist.  
Young Voldemort and Palpatine et al are merely wannabes:  
They'd love to be Dark Lordiest, but none of them are gonna be.  
To try to make comparisons would surely be invidious:  
My stronghold's clearly strongest and my minions are most hideous;  
My résumé reveals a tale of darkness verifiable,  
My mastery of misery and dread is undeniable.

I started as a minion, but a minion very eminent;  
The right-hand man of Melkor, I waged war on light and merriment,  
And when it came to handicrafts, I found my true proclivity:  
I prodded elves in dungeons vile. Hey presto! Orcs' nativity!  
Then Melkor took the Silmarils; the Noldor were aggrieved by it,  
And irked and vexed and miffed and riled and generally peeved by it.  
The tale that follows on from this is hardly Vaudevillian:  
Everybody dies, in short - just read _The Silmarillion!_

At times I was a werewolf vile, the fiercest and the mightiest;  
And other times, a vampire bat, the creepiest and bitiest.  
A shape-shifter, I had a form that was completely mutable,  
But usually I made myself look swoon-worthy and beautiful.  
Thus Celebrimbor heeded me with very little questioning,  
And crafted loads of special rings, in line with my suggestioning,  
But - bwa-ha-ha-ha! - secretly I always meant to fool 'em all…  
I made a super-special Ring in Mordor that would rule 'em all.

My plot to dominate the world initially was glorious,  
But then Men came from Númenor, unstoppably victorious,  
And so I bowed my head to them and feigned to be surrendering,  
And went in chains to Númenor… of course I was pretend-ering!  
With whispered lies, I cast my nets, ensnaring almost all of 'em,  
I pointed West and sent them forth, and engineered the fall of 'em,  
But godly intervention isn't prone to being lenient…  
My pretty body drownded in the Wave - most inconvenient!

Elendil and his pesky sons 'gainst me they did pontificate,  
We went to war, but then the elves came marching to participate.  
The good news: Yay! I slew them both, Elendil and the elfy king.  
The bad: I lost my Ring, my host, my finger, and, well, everything.  
And insult adds to injury: I ceased to be corporeal,  
I slunk away to Mirkwood and spent half an Age arboreal,  
But after many years had passed, from thence I turned and rabbited…  
And came once more to Mordor which I promptly reinhabited.

So here I am, the Darkest Lord, in Barad-dûr I'm hid again,  
With sinister home furnishings, all pointy and obsidian,  
Where ash and desolation are the limits of my scenery:  
I have a live volcano there, in place of garden greenery.  
There is no beauty in my realm, nor anything that's jocular,  
I loom atop my citadel, a giant, blazing ocular,  
And everybody hates me, but at least I'm not anonymous…  
Tolkien named a book for me, his Lord of Rings eponymous.

And now my time has come at last, my triumph's inescapable!  
I look into my Palantír with confidence unshakable!  
Elendil's heir has found the Ring; he's riding forth to battle me!  
His hubris is so laughable; his armies cannot rattle me.  
I'll crush them and I'll slay him and the Ring will be my own again!  
I'll wear it on my finger (er, miraculously grown again)  
I'll… oh, what's that? What's happening? My Ring has gone! I needed it!  
The clue was in the second line: I guess I should have heeded it!

**Author's Note:**

> This filk of mine is modelled on _The Modern Major General_  
>  By Gilbert and by Sullivan, though mine is more ephemeral,  
> While theirs will live forever as a testament to genius,  
> While mine is full of dodgy verse, with rhymes that are quite hein-i-ous.  
> I hope that fans of Tolkien won't denounce it as heretical:  
> I only wrote what I was told: a comedy, poetical,  
> So if you liked it, send me flowers... or comments, in the lieu of them,  
> I'll answer all of them in verse!*
> 
> * More likely, just a few of them.


End file.
